One of the main goals of a casino is to keep its customers playing as long as possible, since longer play generates higher revenues. Casinos are thus interested in maintaining player interest and excitement, especially with regard to gaming device play, which encompasses a large portion of the casino's revenues and profits.
People generally are more likely to be interested in something over which they have some say or control. They are more likely, on the other hand, to get easily frustrated, or bored, with something that they perceive to be determined purely by chance or luck, pre-defined, or in some other way completely out of their influence.
Many players are also frustrated after losing for many spins in a row. They would love to improve their probability of winning but have no way of doing so. Players on a “hot streak”, on the other hand, sometimes believe that they are almost certain to soon hit an outcome with a high payout. U.S. Pat. No. 5,851,147 to Stupak et al. discloses a method for allowing players to increase the jackpot of a gaming device. However, Stupak does not disclose allowing a player to increase payouts for other outcomes that a player may consider even more likely to occur than the outcome corresponding to the jackpot. Additionally, the method disclosed by Stupak lowers the payouts for one or more outcomes in return for increasing the payout of the jackpot. A player on a hot streak may not wish to lower any of the payouts. Therefore, a player wishing to get higher payouts will likely move to a new gaming device, but this means abandoning his “lucky” machine.
There is, therefore, a need for a gaming device that induces the player to continue playing for extended periods of time.